July 6, 2011

AJC reports on the intensive investigation that "names 178 educators, including 38 principals, as participants in cheating. More than 80 confessed." There was "confirmed cheating in 44 of 56 schools" that were examined.

“APS is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t.

Do you pity the underlings who were pressured by their own self-interest?

The cheating cut off struggling students from the extra help they would have received if they’d failed.

At Venetian Hills, a group of teachers and administrators who dubbed themselves “the chosen ones” convened to change answers in the afternoons or during makeup testing days, investigators found. Principal Clarietta Davis, a testing coordinator told investigators, wore gloves while erasing to avoid leaving fingerprints on answer sheets.

Well, do you pity those employees, caving to the job-pressure they felt, or do you turn your back on them, as they betrayed a sacred duty to the children, whose interests had to be put first and were not?

At Gideons Elementary, teachers sneaked tests off campus and held a weekend “changing party” at a teacher’s home in Douglas County to fix answers.

Cheating was “an open secret” at the school, the report said. The testing coordinator handed out answer-key transparencies to place over answer sheets so the job would go faster.

When investigators began questioning educators, now-retired principal Armstead Salters obstructed their efforts by telling teachers not to cooperate, the report said.

“If anyone asks you anything about this just tell them you don’t know,” the report said Salters said. He told teachers to “just stick to the story and it will all go away.”

Disgusting betrayal... parties.

Principal Gwendolyn Benton, who has since left, obstructed the investigation, too, the report said, when she threatened teachers by saying she would “sue them out the ass” if they “slandered” her to the GBI....

“In sum, a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation permeated the APS system from the highest ranks down,” the investigators wrote. “Cheating was allowed to proliferate until, in the words of one former APS principal, ‘it became intertwined in Atlanta Public Schools ... a part of what the culture is all about.’ ”

And let's remember that the state compels children to go to school. Children are held captive for endless hours of their young lives, in part so that teachers will impart cultural values to them. And look what their values were!

MPS would have done this, but it required "after hours" or "open period" work. And they would have none of that. It's not in their contract you see. So while we can't rely on their integrity, we can rely of their work effort, or lack thereof.

Sudents are not legally required to attend public schools - home schooling, private schools works fine. Home schooling allows a lot of freedom in how a kid is getting an education.

These laws are meant to protect parents or guardians from exploiting kids below the age of 16 years old. They are another side of the child labor laws. As a result, families can't force 14 or 15 year old kids to drop out of school to work for the family, work as a nanny, or care for a sick parent.

The cheating cut off struggling students from the extra help they would have received if they’d failed.

Plus, the kids who do well get no reward for doing well except 3-4 days of boring testing. A couple of years ago at my son's high school, many kids simply doodled on their tests and didn't answer anything. It made no difference to them. It didn't help/hurt them academically or any other way. Why try?

This past year, teachers made sure the kids at least answered the questions. But, who knows how much effort was put into the answers as opposed to randomly filling in little circles with #2 pencils?

Unless school is meaningful to the kids, cheating teachers don't make much difference. Although, they should be fired or harshly reprimanded with a pay cut. Our de-education system has become a parody of itself.

To keep ignoring this is to ask for more of the same. It's a boil that must be lanced. Even most blacks don't understand what's happening, y'all. Open this puppy up and we not only get control over our country again, but the Democrats will lose them - forever.

Treat this shit as a simple teacher's problem and it will go on:

"America, and the Western World, are fighting a belief system: Defeat the 'Left',...and they'll be back. Defeat NewAge - and we're done with them!"

So this was for the children - yeah right!!! When an educator bemoans oversight of their teaching methods, this morality tale should be brought up. Teachers 1 - children - Zero. Pity the children - a lifetime of poor job oppourtunities and dependance on government statism. Win, Win for unions and their collaborators. Shameful!!!

I'd say it's accurate. The parents can only homeschool or private school if they can afford it. Further, the child has to go along with the parents, and most parents don't want to pay for private school even when they can afford it or put in the effort to homeschool.

Also, when you're the kid, it definitely feels like being held captive.

Pretty much so, I'd say.

My kids hate the testing days. Each year, half the students are tested. During testing the other students sit around and watch old movies on TV and other "totally" boring stuff. The kids not being tested probably hate it as much as the kids being tested.

You impugn all teachers with your statements that this is the values of public school teachers. It is not. It is the actions of a very small group of people many of whom appear to have been coerced.

Lisa, where did you come up with the coercion idea? Coerced by whom? They chose to do this.

I did not see Althouse "impugning" all teachers. You are setting up a straw man.

I do think, however, that it's fair to generalize about the integrity of the Atlanta system based on this story. One hundred eighty people is not a "small number." Moreover, the group includes many in highly responsible positions. Their lack on integrity did not just emerge in this incident. Yet the Atlanta system kept promoting these people.

The cheating was an "open secret," known well beyond the cadre of active cheaters. So many, many people just gave them a pass.

My bet is that the named cheaters are not close to the full number of them. Even if this is not correct, the magnitude of the cheating, and the high position of the cheaters, is a blot on the whole Atlanta system.

BTW - this is not a new story. A liberal blog I occasionally visit was covering this back in March. According to him, teacher's associations, in Georgia have no right to collective bargaining. (Now living in NOLA, he's a native Georgian.)

Also, The Atlanta Public Schools are accused of withholding teacher contracts in order to intimidate teachers not to testify against possible APS wrongdoing under state investigation. This is not the first time state investigators have raised concerns that the APS is conducting a campaign of witness intimidation.

Not the first time for witness intimidation? Sounds like Atlanta has a really great school system there.

Crack, why is this happening in largely black school systems dominated by Democrats?

Why would the black community deliberately foil the education of their own fucking children?

Or is it only an accident that this is occurring in the two largest black school districts in the nation. (I don't keep track, so I could be wrong about this.)

Why and how do black kids take over hallways in schools, or neighborhoods in cities, to harass/coerce others, while screaming about oppression? Check the links I gave you above - cultism/groupthink/mob culture goes beyond any particular culture.

What I'm saying is don't be fooled by the various trappings - whether it's this group or that - it's the phenomena that's important and must be stopped.

The difficulty will not be in getting rid of those who oversaw, enforced or participated in the cheating scam. The hard part is replacing the existing corrupt system with something that works and in which there are built-in checks to ensure transparency. Keeping the same monolithic bureaucracy while changing the players doesn't strike me as a sensible way forward. The first law of any bureaucracy is to protect its own while expanding its turf. But keeping the same basic system is what's likely to happen.

No Child Left Behind means Every Child Dragged Along. The kid isn't held responsible for his performance, the teacher and the school system are. The teachers have strong motivation to deliver the product.

What motivation does the student have? None. He will get a social promotion if he doesn't bother to learn. And his mom will blather on about how the system has failed her precious snowflake.

One of the big objectives of unions, after all, is to preserve the mediocrity.

Ann Althouse said...

And let's remember that the state compels children to go to school.

Does it, or does it compel them to be educated?

Are they compelled to go to a public school, staffed by union teachers?

Parochial or private schools, or homeschooling is better, as the results show, but the unions want as much of a monopoly as they can get and government, particularly Democrats, do everything they can, with taxpayer dollars, to help.

Lisa said: You impugn all teachers with your statements that this is the values of public school teachers. It is not. It is the actions of a very small group of people many of whom appear to have been coerced.

If Lisa is a teacher (which seems likely based on what appears to be personal offense here), I'm highly troubled by the idea of her teaching if 1) her reading comprehension is such that that is her interpretation of Althouse's post, and 2) her values are such that she would excuse these actions as "coerced."

My wife taught at a private high school. When she exercised her duty as dictated by school policy and her contract which obligated her to obey the policy, and disciplined student cheaters in her classes, she was counseled by the principal to pass the cheaters (they were seniors and faced summer school as a result of the cheating). She was then asked to become a part-timer, until she understood the context of her career (or some such bullshit). She resigned.

Not at all, or just not compulsory? We in Tennessee are a right to work state, but we still definitely have teachers' unions.

That is all irrelevant - this issue has nothing to do with unions, though they, too, exist on cultism and groupthink. Keep doing this dance and you'll be spinning in circles forever - and nothing will get done for these kids.

Everywhere I look, the schools that do best have the most parents that care the most about education. Teachers like to blame the parents for failures, but you hear less about giving parents credit for success.

A bad teacher can screw things up, but a good teacher has great difficulty overcoming apathy and hostility towards school and education. Private schools do better because almost all the parents of private school students care a lot. A minority care a lot in many public schools. Find a public school in a community of college educated parents and you'll find a school that has good academic performance.

That is all irrelevant - this issue has nothing to do with unions, though they, too, exist on cultism and groupthink. Keep doing this dance and you'll be spinning in circles forever - and nothing will get done for these kids.

"I'd say it's accurate. The parents can only homeschool or private school if they can afford it. Further, the child has to go along with the parents, and most parents don't want to pay for private school even when they can afford it or put in the effort to homeschool."

I can see your point, and I agree that the legal requirement means that mandatory school should be a worthwhile educational experience. And I would approve of various types of educations beyond conventional school.

But I'm not sure that removing the legal requirement to attend some sort of schooling or training until 16 yrs. would increase freedom and choice for young teens or kids.

In other words, there are other forms of captivity that are worse and could be legal if the requirement is removed. (ie - forced to drop out of school and take care of young siblings full time.)

My wife,...was counseled by the principal to pass the cheaters (they were seniors and faced summer school as a result of the cheating). She was then asked to become a part-timer, until she understood the context of her career (or some such bullshit).

Having said that, let also add that the teachers have been put into an almost impossible situation with the job security and performance dependent upon the whims of teenage boys and girls. You can create wonderful lessons plans, work tireless to help educate their empty minds and find your efforts rewarded with failing test scores because your students decided to spend the night before the big exam playing "Call of Duty" or watching "American Idol".

Would you want YOUR job security to be dependent on a 14-year old?

So they cheat and they cheat because we have parents who don't care and don't back up the teacher when little Johnnie comes home with his well-deserved 'F. And we take away any possible way of meaningfully disciplining the little twerps.

FWIW I'm self employed, but for the past six years I've volunteered taught at a local private school (high school math).

Not at all, or just not compulsory? We in Tennessee are a right to work state, but we still definitely have teachers' unions.

Not at all. There are voluntary groups like the Georgia Association of Educators but they have no collective bargaining power whatsoever. Pay, benefits, working conditions, etc. are all at the discretion of the school district administrators. I think there's actually a law against it.

First thing to understand is that The Atlanta Public Schools(APS) are in the City Limits of about 500,000.

The other 3,000,000 residents of Atlanta are in the surrounding Metro counties. That's where the whites moved. There are exceptions in the Buckhead area, but there the Private Academies/schools are heavily used.

It has long been known that APS sends the students along uneducated.

For 20 years Georgia has had a lottery based Hope Scholarship to attend Georgia colleges for free if the High School Grade Avg. was about B+. hThe APS goal became to entitle every student for the Hope and let the colleges sort them out later.

Trouble is that the remedial learning programs these Freshman students end up in at colleges are at their own costs and are not paid for by Hope Scholarship money.

The best news is that the Governor and the State and even the Mayor of Atlanta may now really be ready to address this black hole (oops!)I mean fake school system.

The out of State immigrants to Georgia from Chicago and Detroit do well and really benefit from the Hope Scholarships that attracted them here.

But the local inner City blacks kids are in and out of college inside a year and proudly feel that they beat the system.

Black Racism has been openly and proudly practiced in the City of Atlanta government and schools for 40 years.

The idea has been that getting high pay for work is not enough to get reparations due from the Man as compared to getting high pay without working much.

The legislature can take over the APS and help the next generation of black students if it has the balls to do it.

When that happens, then No Child Left Behind will finally have made a difference.

These groups and influences are identifiable. We can irradicate this - not by playing Whack-A-Mole with a mallet, but by ripping the guts out of the machine, itself - that way it doesn't pop up again, right?

This thing we're doing now, where wrong is rewarded while good is punished (see gerry's story about his wife) can't go on while we mouth how we're going to fix our problems in politics, the economy, etc.

Then we wonder why there is no work ethic or job skills to even qualify for employment in the inner city Black community.

The liberals and the teachers have conspired to put these children on a path of permanent underclass status, permanent slum living, permanent unemployable status,economic slavery to the welfare state and blind allegiance to those who have done this horrible thing to them.

It is only the very few remaining with intact families and the internal drive to escape the liberal's prison of unintended (although I think it IS intended because they are just that evil) consequences.

For those of you wondering how one can see that some teachers were coerced into cheating, did you not read the article?

It is clear from the article that this culture of cheating was pushed from the top down. It was the policy of the central office.

"For teachers, a culture of fear ensured the deception would continue.

“APS is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t."

"“It’s the people over them, that threatened them, that should be punished,”"

"Another time, Few ordered staff to destroy a case log of cheating-related internal investigations after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution requested it, the report said. Few told staff to replace the old log with a new, altered version. "

"The testing coordinator handed out answer-key transparencies to place over answer sheets so the job would go faster.

When investigators began questioning educators, now-retired principal Armstead Salters obstructed their efforts by telling teachers not to cooperate, the"

"Principal Gwendolyn Benton, who has since left, obstructed the investigation, too, the report said, when she threatened teachers by saying she would “sue them out the ass” if they “slandered” her to the GBI."

Gerry: I just wrote a check for 20 grand for my child's tuition for the upcoming year. Cheating equals expulsion and no refund. Dope use or possession equals expulsion and no refunds. Now I ask you, do you think I have not made cheating and dope use a conversational topic? For the last eight years? I have. Has it worked? Yes. Maybe one kid a year is booted for cheating, maybe one for drugs. My kid will not be that one.

Paying for something and having rules are good things. It is when things are "free" that you need to worry.

To Gerry I would argue that any kid at a private school that costs even the relatively low sum of $4000 a year is getting a credential with a high school degree. That kid knows what it necessary. That kid could pass the GED test easily.

With the kids here, we are talking about passing a basic skills test concerning rudimentary math and English. We aren't talking about a grade in a geology class.

The cheating at the private school isn't justified. But it's nothing to get upset about. This is.

Then we wonder why there is no work ethic or job skills to even qualify for employment in the inner city Black community.

The liberals and the teachers have conspired to put these children on a path of permanent underclass status, permanent slum living, permanent unemployable status,economic slavery to the welfare state and blind allegiance to those who have done this horrible thing to them.

You left out the part about permanently voting Democratic. This mass failure, which liberals blame on everything except their programs and policies that bring about this failure, is used to convince blacks, poor whites, women, and other "disadvantaged" folks that their only hope are the social welfare programs that trapped them in the first place.

"Idiocracy facilitated by the teachers public school unions."Again, Georgia public school teachers are not unionized. At all.

I stand corrected on the Union issue then, but stand firmly behind my other sentiments.

The public school system we have now, which is controlled by progressive, socialist, liberal interests is NOT operating to educate students and hasn't been since the early 1970s. Instead it is a massive tax scam geared to indoctrination of the students. Even in good schools systems in good neighborhoods the students learn literally NOTHING. In the inner cities it is worse.

The system is evil.

When I am queen of the world my first act will be to abolish the Department of Education. Then the EPA.

But the "guts" appear to be good ol' self-interest bolstered by self-preservation. How are you going to remove that from any system humans are a part of?

You do it sideways: as I've pointed out to Ann, the NewAge mantra is "It's all connected," because that's the way they've set it all up - these groups (and individuals within them) work together. So it's as simple as investigating the obvious fraud - and seriously busting them for it - and then continuing down the line as they reveal more.

I've said countless times, if we'd only go after psychics, which exist on every street corner, we'd get a toehold on crime in this country so fast it would make the criminals head spin - but we don't - and for the life of me I don't know why.

It was because I discovered my wife's girlfriend - a teacher - was talking to psychics that I discovered my wife was cheating on me. Which, of course, led to everything else we know.

a) Education is the easiest field to get through with a 4-year degree. Those who can't handle engineering switch to business; those who can't handle business switch to education. So it becomes a magnet for lazy, stupid people who want 3 months off every year. (No, not all teachers are lazy and stupid. A precious few have a calling for the profession. But about 2/3 are just in it for the easy, easy money, job security, and pension.)

b) These lazy, stupid people have it in their head that they're competent professionals who deserve world-class pay and benefits and are beyond supervision or evaluation.

So these petulant assholes resent any attempt to measure the effectiveness of their teaching. They hold those who attempt to supervise them in contempt -- it's not surprising at all that they'd behave this way, and not even feel bad about it.

And for these people, the effect on the children doesn't even enter into it. They care about children as much as a burger-flipper at MacDonald's cares about cuisine.

The difference is that the burger-flipper can be fired; and the burger-flipper doesn't think he should be paid and treated with the respect and deference due an engineer or physician, but without any oversight whatsoever.

APS admin thought they couldn't meet their NCLB targets and they were right. Some districts just don't have the right stuff: motivated students and parents. I don't condone the cheating, but it was incentivized by Congress.

I teach immigrant and refugee children from all over the world. My classroom resembles a United Nations conference. No one should think Atlanta is an isolated or unique instance. But what is not understood is the professional retaliation you would subject yourself to by whistle blowing. You may well never work again as a teacher. You can ask my girlfried about that. Remember, that when dealing with large educational bureaucracy no good deed ever goes un-punished.

A bill to require California public schools to teach the historical accomplishments of gay men and lesbians passed the state Legislature on Tuesday in what supporters call a first for the nation.

Meanwhile the students can't read or write on higher than a 5th grade level. Can't accomplish basic math. Have no concept of history, not even recent history (most can't tell you who fought in WWII or on what side). Have no understanding of basic science.

They graduate with the equivilant of, at best, an 8th grade education qualified to do nothing more than menial work. Those that have degrees or aspire to higher education need to have remedial courses before they can even begin to take courses at our so called institutions of higher learning (snort)

But....hey....they will know who was banging who in the butt, won't they and how uber important it is to be homosexual and how to examine their own sexuality and change gender assignments if they feel like it.

Lisa said.. "For those of you wondering how one can see that some teachers were coerced into cheating, did you not read the article?"

Lisa, we read it. I highlighted this material in the blog post itself. I am raising the moral question whether these top-down pressures are sufficient to exculpate the teachers.

Would you, subject to those pressures, do what those teachers did? It is, as I said in the post, a disgusting betrayal of trust. The teachers put their own interests over those of the children. Would you do that? Or would you have been a whistleblower?

There were thousands and thousands of teachers -- teachers! -- in a position to blow the whistle. Why didn't it happen?

I would not let the teachers off the hook. Adults who betray the trust of children... How dare they! But there was money in it for me... how is that an answer?!!

A bill to require California public schools to teach the historical accomplishments of gay men and lesbians passed the state Legislature on Tuesday in what supporters call a first for the nation.

If the gay and lesbian accomplishments are truly historical or significant, why do we need to stress the gay or lesbian aspect, unless the historical accomplishment isn't really the point and the gay and lesbian part is.

I don't think we need to know about Edison's sexual interests why should we give a rip about this issue.

When all other aspects of education have been covered and the students are accomplished themselves....... then waste time on this bullshit.

There are other standardized tests like NAEP that show how schools are doing, and don't encourage cheating.

It's not the tests - it's the people in the schools.

I was listening to Coast To Coast A.M. lqst night; and there was a guy crowing that his U:F:O: book was required reading - alongside Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegutt and others - in schools across the country. What teacher or district assigns such nonsense?

Our schools are relativism farms, and they're raising the kids we see today - who can't think, or reason, or anything else beyond trying to make all ideas equal - and they're getting that from the teachers.

Amen. Different example below. Imagine. Cheating your own country in a time of war?

Billions paid to firms that defrauded Pentagon

The Associated PressPosted : Wednesday Feb 2, 2011 18:20:43 EST

WASHINGTON — "Hundreds of defense companies that defrauded the U.S. military between 2007 and 2009 still received $285 billion in contracts from the Pentagon during the same period, a U.S. senator said Wednesday."

"Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called the figures “shocking” and urged the Defense Department to take more aggressive steps to ensure taxpayer dollars aren’t wasted at a time when the U.S. is running a $14 trillion national debt."

"Citing a January report prepared by Pentagon acquisition officials at Sanders’ request, the senator said the bulk of the contracts — just over $280 billion — went to 211 companies that had civil judgments against them or settled fraud charges of more than $1 million."

"During the same period, 30 defense contractors were convicted of criminal fraud, but still were awarded $682 million in new work, according to the Pentagon’s report."

In any human organization, people will respond to formal metrics by delivering their metric in the most efficient manner feasible. Those imposing the metric imagine this will be done by actually improving performance; most often, it is done by cheating. You can see this in factories and professional workplaces (think finance departments) as well as government agencies and school districts -- and sports teams. To (try to) combat this, you need to reduce the reward for cheating, or find an incentive that, when cheated upon, involves behavior which is still desirable.

It is clear from the article that this culture of cheating was pushed from the top down. It was the policy of the central office.

That's not an excuse. If my employer wants me to do something clearly unethical or illegal, I am expected, even required, to refuse, even if it means my job. What these folks did impaired the education of thousands of children; its far worse than anything that I could do in my job. There's no reason that teachers should be held to lower standards than lawyers.

I think the basic flaw in our educational system is that the school districts are paid for attendance, rather than results. If the school district were paid upon a student achieving a desired level of ability in specified subjects, even if they accomplish this in a few weeks rather than multiple years, the incentive would be to accelerate the achievement, rather than to prolong the attendance. Of course, this would require some kind of official evaluation, which would be cheated upon, if possible. And it is always possible.

When you dig down into the left's gay martyrdom stories, they're all bullshit, aren't they?

Palladian got mad at me the other day for trying to get him to cop to this truth - which I gladly do when it comes to blacks - I wasn't attacking him, personally (until afterwards) at all:

We are living within a web of lies - and that allows for wrongs to occur at almost every level of our existence. But they're not seen as wrongs because they supposedly serve a greater good, which is bullshit.

Pasta said: These lazy, stupid people have it in their head that they're competent professionals who deserve world-class pay and benefits and are beyond supervision or evaluation.

My husband manages an office supply store, so they have a lot of teacher customers (for school supplies). He tells me, time and again, that they are the absolute worst customers- they constantly want things for free, and special treatment, just because they are teachers. As a former waitress, I'm familiar with this as well.

Again, this certainly doesn't apply to all teachers, but there are far too many that think that they are involved a "nobel profession" and should be catered to just for existing.

Pasta said: These lazy, stupid people have it in their head that they're competent professionals who deserve world-class pay and benefits and are beyond supervision or evaluation.

My husband manages an office supply store, so they have a lot of teacher customers (for school supplies). He tells me, time and again, that they are the absolute worst customers- they constantly want things for free, and special treatment, just because they are teachers. As a former waitress, I'm familiar with this as well.

Again, this certainly doesn't apply to all teachers, but there are far too many that think that they are involved a "nobel profession" and should be catered to and fawned over just for existing.

Are there any other services where we pay for a process rather than for on outcome? Why, yes, there are. Any "remedial" government agency gets paid for existing, not for reducing the problem the reduction of which is theoretically their reason for existing. In fact, the worse they are at their alleged mission, the more they can claim to be needed.

Hah! wv: mortness. Commentary on the coming national health bureaucracy.

Having said that, let also add that the teachers have been put into an almost impossible situation with the job security and performance dependent upon the whims of teenage boys and girls.

Eh, I'm just not that moved by this argument. Did they not know what they were signing up for? Did they not train for just that occurance? Did they not attend school themselves and see what teenagers are like?

Either they can make a difference and they're really important, or they can't and they aren't. They can't be really important when the results are good, but of no consequence when the results are bad.

Seems a bit like a doctor complaining that his/her job is impossible, what with all of the germs and disease.

As for your question, would I be a whistleblower? Whistleblowers were reprimanded and punished while cheaters were rewarded. I'm fortunate enough that I have a spouse with a good income; I am in a position that I could conceivably give up a job (and possibly never get hired again!) on principal. Not many are that lucky.

The only way to "stop this shit" is to stop the state mandated testing (NCLB) tied to funding. We're incentivizing cheating, and almost as bad, teaching to the test.

I'd privatize the whole shebang, make attendance optional, eliminate the Dept. of Education, and provide means tested vouchers. Counties can fight about what they want to do with school taxes. I'd also bust teachers' unions. If the private school wants to offer tenure or merit pay, go get'em.

Parents would have to get off of their asses, and buy baby sitting or school.

No one in their right mind wants to walk into any one of these classrooms!

I had a teacher explain to me, once, how unfit a class she had, was. Because the "students" came in with screwdrivers. And, while she spoke, they'd just remove the screws from the backs of the chairs that were in front of them.

A form of "busy work." And, boredom.

But people are taking the jobs to teach because they need the money!

Yes, the worst corrosion comes out from administrators. Not just in Atlanta, Georgia, either.

While I can remember one bumper sticker I saw, long ago, as I pulled up to a stop. And, read if off the car's bumper that was right in front of me?

Teachers like to claim they're part of a profession; but real professions -- law, medicine, engineering -- have enforced codes of ethics with real punishments.

Does that mean lawyers, doctors, and engineers never cheat? Of course not! But it means that if they do so, they do so knowing there are serious potential consequences. That creates a counter pressure to the pressure you describe.

If teachers ever want to have a real profession -- and frankly, I think it's far too late for that, and too few of them really care -- they should be the first ones calling for punishment in cases like this. They need to police their own and enforce a code of ethics with real teeth.

Maybe the low test scores could be channeled into shop classes, or a vocational school. Unless, of course, they had some talent the university could use....like being 6'-11'', or blazing speed with soft hands.

I can't imagine how schools can even begin to help individual students achieve at the level they are capable of, without first measuring and knowing their IQs, and thus the upside potential, of each student.

It is as if we expected doctors to produce health improvements in their patients, without first being able to establish a baseline of blood work, so they knew what was possible, what would constitute improvement, for each particular patient.

Cnnauck wrote, "I would say that the word "captive" is a little over-the-top."

No, it isn't because, as Ann said, children are required to be in school and states have various methods to compel attendence from physically collecting the student and depositing them into the school to arresting a parent.

What is over the top is, "Children are held captive for endless hours..." I'll take that as rhetorical flourish because every hour ends after 60 minutes and the collected hours of school end when the required age is reached. They only seem endless.

As for the charge, "This could ONLY occur in X" defies the reality and ubiquitous nature of cheating by teachers. If this case were unique, there wouldn't be a handwriting analysis for bubble tests which determines if the test has been tampered with by secondary persons. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/06/09/handwriting-analysis-can-tell-who-filled-in-bubbles-on-tests-ballots/

"No, it isn't because, as Ann said, children are required to be in school and states have various methods to compel attendence from physically collecting the student and depositing them into the school to arresting a parent."

yeah - true. But only if the parents don't sign the kid up for any other type of school.

I guess we're using a wide definition of captivity here. Kids are held captive at home. If they run away from home the police can legally arrest them.

Both home and school should be decent because we hold kids captive for endless hours.

Lyssa wrote: "Eh, I'm just not that moved by this argument. Did they not know what they were signing up for? Did they not train for just that occurance?"

Lyssa, I totally agree with that. What I would like to see is teachers being accountable to the parents and the parents giving a damn about education. Almost invariably when I've had a parent who really cared about his or her kid's education and sided with ME rather than with Junior, the child did well.

On the other hand, too many parents drop their kids off and expect the state to take over and produce Rhodes Scholars. It don't work that way.

I'd privatize the whole thing. Give parents vouchers and tell them to pick a school. The schools have to sell a product called "education" to get clients. Parents who demand quality for their dollars will get it. Parents who don't care wll get what they deserve, but at least you don't have the losers containmenating the kids who want to learn something and the parents who demand accountability and results.

Makes me extremely sad to see what's become of my home town. I graduated from an Atlanta high school nearly 50 years ago. It was quite different then. I had wonderful teachers. About ten years ago I volunteered as a tutor in an Atlanta elementary school. It was incredible. I could not figure out who the teachers were. Kids coming to school covered in sores. Screaming at 5 year olds. Unbelievable. When the school year was over, I declined to continue tutoring. Too depressing. However, I did learn that just that weekly one-on-one session with the child did get results and his reading improved.

The obvious is that what you get when blacks take over the control of a city or a neighborhood - or anything - is Africa-like corruption and incompetence (as well as flash mob riots targeting whites).

It's rude to say that but that is the simple truth.

Oh good lord. What part of I see this at all levels of society - and featuring all groups - didn't you understand?

Is America's NewAge culture - not blacks or anybody else's - really so hard to grasp? I'd even say, if we utilized the lessons of American black culture - which is more conservative than most - we could nip this shit in the bud overnight, but - because of NewAge/politically correct thinking - other groups are too wimpy to go there for fear of appearing racist against the blacks they'd have to punish.

Most blacks I know are NOT afraid of punishing anybody, of any color - hell, they'd want it put on TV - it's just figuring out who's wrong that's the question.

You obviously have no shame, nor honor. You justify this shit under the guise of "the poor oppressed college educated teachers didn't have any options in this matter."

You, and people like you are the problem.

Now, as far as APS go, this has been common knowledge for years. It's not only the school system. The city and county .govs pull the same shit on an economic scale. APS is not alone; look at Clayton County as another example. There are schools inside the perimeter where young men are homosexually raped by their peers in the john, and nothing is done about it; black on black homosexual rape doesn't fit the narrative. It's a god damned travesty.

That one sentence was interesting, though, "At Gideons Elementary, teachers sneaked tests off campus and held a weekend “changing party” at a teacher’s home in Douglas County to fix answers." -That teacher, and anyone in the group, is going to go down. Douglas County lives for this. They will prosecute those folks for everything. The other APS folks will get a pass, including the now retired Superintendent who is SHOCKED, SHOCKED to find cheating going on in her school system.

Fucking dim bulbs feeding off of the system from the inside. Tape worms. Poor little college educated tape worms.

I don't see any teachers saying that those responsible shouldn't be punished. What I am saying is that this was not a union problem, this was something that the administration of the district did and pushed down. People do stupid and misguided things when they are pressured from their superiors... and there is evidence that teachers (at least some) were threatened.

Drudge is having a blast with headlines. In 2009, the "superintendent" of the year came from this stinking atlanta district.

And, the cop of the year has been caught selling drugs.

This stuff just writes, itelf.

As gutter journalists fail to grab pulitzers. And, from the looks of things, as soon as the Casey Anthony jurors came back saying there was reasonable doubt; (because the prosecutors had no idea how the daughter died ... )

The story goes quietly away. On tip toe. Like algore ... getting hit on his head with a hockey stick. (Which is why and how there was an end to the global warming scam.)

Now, Drudge says, in England, Murdoch is gonna be brought down in a media war!

You say I have no honor because I am honestly saying that if I had to chose between being able to feed my children and blowing the whistle where I have seen others try and fail, I don't know what I would do?

While I am being honest, let be honest about something else. I wouldn't set foot in an Atlanta (or Detroit) classroom as a teacher. I don't tolerate stupidity and politics well. I've been fortunate enough that I've never had to teach in anything but the best school districts.

But I've never been in a position where I have had to teach some place like that. And if I were desperate enough to take a job in Atlanta or Detroit, I would probably be desperate enough to try to protect it to provide for my children.

I quit a job 14 years ago because there was obvious financial manipulation occurring. I was the sole bread winner of a family of 5 at the time, but I was not going to be a party to something so obviously wrong. You know what I did? I went and got another job. I wasn't a victim trapped by circumstances. But I don't have the misfortune of being handicapped with a college degree. Those poor people!

You impugn all teachers with your statements that this is the values of public school teachers. It is not. It is the actions of a very small group of people many of whom appear to have been coerced.

Earth to Lisa -- all teachers fully deserve to be impugned. This was not a small group of people; this was endemic throughout the entire Atlanta system. When the NEA gets serious about getting rid of the burnt-out cases, the never-could-teach-fish-to-swim-much-less-kids-how-to-read-and-write cases, etc., instead of covering it all up, then we'll get somewhere with education in this country. Until then, we've got a humongous group of people hiding behind the tiny group of teachers who really are dedicated and really do teach their pupils.

And don't forget Detroit! Detroit public school teachers are 100% union and don't you forget it!

I think they were all fired weren't they? You could just hire prison labor to teach. That's what we're doing in WIsconsin - fire public workers and have murderers and rapists do landscaping in our neighborhoods.

Lisa: My dear woman, you should acquire and read a book on ethics. Two would be better. If our teachers, and their apologists, do not know right from wrong how can they provide an example for our children? There is absolutely no excuse for cheating.

Garage; Union teachers are way better than non union? Is that your thesis? You have, have you not, read about the time that it takes a teacher in NYC to be laid off? And you know, do you not, what they do in the very long period while their fate is being decided, long after they have been identified as people who cannot and should not be in class rooms? You are a curious guy with an active mind, look it up.

Another reason to be proud of the public schools in Wisconsin that continually do well without cheating.

If this:

Two-thirds of the eighth graders in Wisconsin public schools cannot read proficiently according to the U.S. Department of Education, despite the fact that Wisconsin spends more per pupil in its public schools than any other state in the Midwest.

If schools taught walking, the only course that would work would be offered by Monty Python.

Yes, parents are relieved when summers end. And, schools start. Because having kids around you all day gets put aside in a "Back to School" frenzy.

Kids, actually learn one-by-one. For teachers? It just means repeating the material until the "average kid" gets it. The bright kid got bored long ago. And, the stupid kid won't get it by the "repetitious method" either.

What we've removed from the equation is "chores."

And, what we added for no good reason, is adult supervised sports.

That a black school got benefits by faking results? I'm not gonna get my buttons pushed over this!

We'll never get to bettering our schools, because women, who once only had two choices: Go into nursing. Or go into teaching. Got to "go into" anything they wanted.

While "going into marriage" collapsed into first wives clubs.

Black kids are just like all other kids. They can learn if they're motivated. As Clarence Thomas shows ya.

I don't dignify arguments looking to push my bigot button.

And, I don't believe in arguments that blame the kids, anyway. If a kid learned how to walk and talk ... I know this was figured out without a credentialed teacher.

You want people living in ghettos to cure a problem that is as pervasive as this one?

only 32 percent of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders earned a “proficient” rating while another 2 percent earned an “advanced” rating. The other 66 percent of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders earned ratings below “proficient,” including 44 percent who earned a rating of “basic” and 22 percent who earned a rating of “below basic.”

Lisa,"What I am saying is that this was not a union problem, this was something that the administration of the district did and pushed down."

If that is the case, and if this is not closer to the rule than the exception, then all teachers' unions, school boards, district administrations, etc. shoudl be making public statements how horrendous this is, that anyone caught doing this should be fired, and that they welcome detailed audits of their testing processes/programs. I guarantee that this type of occurrence is very wide spread - the penalties for those who get caught aren't severe enough relative to the benefits of getting away with it.

"Here's a first step (and always a good first step): The black parents in Atlanta should go out and buy a mirror and look into it. Is that so complicated?"

I would tend to agree with 'Crack here. I'm not sure the parents in Atlanta are to blame for a bunch of thieves altering tests so they can reap the "performance bonuses" that the government has set up for itself.

This is garden variety thievery of taxpayer dollars on a grand scale by the people who make up the government in Atlanta - sadly they are mostly black Democrats.

If you put these people in charge, and offer them bonuses for better test scores, then you deserve what you get.

I don't think much will come of it, however. Almost all of Atlanta is run by corrupt black Democrats and they're not going to be too eager to see this scab peeled.

Write Atlanta off, in the same way we can write Detroit off and Washington, D.C. off.

Fifty years of Democrat Party control of our institutions has come to this.

We fucking deserve the generation of ignorant black kids we'll get from this.

CH: This is not a black "school" it is a black "school system." Most public schools in Atlanta are predominately black because the majority of the citizens of Atlanta are black. They have cooked the books and should be held accountable including being sent to jail. The purpose of cooking the books was not to make the kids smarter but to make themselves look better and to insure that they got bigger and better raises. Etc.

I can assure you that parents of all races have a huge influence over their children's education and the quality thereof. Motivating them is more the job of the parent than the teacher. I am glad you mention Clarence Thomas because he is an American hero and he got his motivation at the end of his grandfather's stick as I recall.

The parents are certainly a large part of the problem - if they made education a priority, their children would be scoring well on the tests and there would be no need for the schools to be cheating. Also, a general atmosphere that has been created that virtually everyone gets promoted, parents not supporting schools disciplinary actions, and suing if their children get failing grades. Parents, over the years, have played a huge role in the decline of our schools. But that is still no excuse for what the Atlantans did.

Hey, exhelodrvr1! They're not Atlantans! They're a bunch of carpetbagging, transplanted refuse from the great diverse cities of the North. They brought that shit down here with them. Unfortunately, Lisa thinks they're poor, trapped, souls who must carry the burden of a college education with them.

WV: bouskers:

The blouskers made their monthly teck to wormeldange where they were not warmly received.

Carol sez: "Of course, the biggest change was taking away from teachers the right to grade pupils honestly."

There is wheat in your chaff, Carol.

As a society, we are doing a terrible thing by having low expectations. Crack blames New Age Bullshit. That's a better explanation than most. But however you explain it, we kill the spirits of kids by expecting so little of them. We do this at most levels of society, and seem to do it even more with black kids. I assume that there's a fairly large black component among the teachers and administrators who permitted this to happen. It's betrayal for sure. And madness.

Since these are machine-graded, would it be possible to go back and apply a rule (i.e., substitute the faintly shaded circle answer - the one partially erased by the teacher or administrator) in order to generate the actual (original) score? I mean, I lived in Atlanta for 10 years and I know the Fulton County schools suck badly, but it would be interesting to know, with some precision, how badly they suck badly.

I'm saying the unions have little effect on a child's learning, and have nothing to do with the cheating scandal.

Old Dad nailed it here:The only way to "stop this shit" is to stop the state mandated testing (NCLB) tied to funding. We're incentivizing cheating, and almost as bad, teaching to the test.

That's why it happened. If we're going to keep public education do away with all the mindless testing. Both the student and the teacher are worse for it -- science, history and art curriculums are being neglected because those don't "count" in the test scores.

We didn't evolve preparing for endless multiple choice tests. It reminds me of this Salon article I read a while back on "child-proof" playgrounds of today and "adventure playgrounds" of Europe after WWII. Read it, and the analogy will make sense.

I think they were all fired weren't they? You could just hire prison labor to teach. That's what we're doing in WIsconsin - fire public workers and have murderers and rapists do landscaping in our neighborhoods.

Mowing the lawn while dressed in prison garb is hardly the same thing as teaching students.

The first isn't rocket science. Operating a shovel doesn't require a degree. Not a lot of moving pars

The second obviously isn't using rocket scientists since the children come out of school hardly any better than when they went in.

Carol Herman: Sticks teach great. The stick was not worth it to the young Clarence Thomas and so he decided to avoid the stick. He learned he did not like the stick and in time he liked the feeling of accomplishment that came from excelling, from doing the work, from showing up. In the beginning the work did not seem worth it, but given the choice between the work and the stick the work prevailed.

Our kids don't fist fight any more, they can't. Their differences are solved by adults. Their close calls in games are settled by adults. The culture cannot abide failure and so it has come to extol the bullshit mediocre, the trophy for every kid, the excellent outcome, the cheating on the test scores to prove that our children are doing just great.

We fucking deserve the generation of ignorant black kids we'll get from this.

And white kids too. They are also a generation, actually the third generation, of ignoramuses that our public school system is puking out onto society. The difference is that the white families still have some semblance of stability.

These flash mobs of ignorant, bored, violent, amoral children are yet another reason you will NEVER find me anywhere near the cities and those neighborhoods and why you will find that my home, car and person are well armed.

"I would tend to agree with 'Crack here. I'm not sure the parents in Atlanta are to blame for a bunch of thieves altering tests so they can reap the "performance bonuses" that the government has set up for itself.

Who do you think does quality control on schools, teachers, textbooks and everything else school related? The Government?

The places that put out the best students -- the upper Midwest -- still has values of personal and parental responsibility. For the most part, they make sure their kids behave, do their homework. And they also make sure a bunch of crooked dumbfucks are running the schools. They vote.

Our kids don't fist fight any more, they can't. Their differences are solved by adults. Their close calls in games are settled by adults. The culture cannot abide failure and so it has come to extol the bullshit mediocre, the trophy for every kid, the excellent outcome, the cheating on the test scores to prove that our children are doing just great.

Crack: Dude, I follow your blog. I get it, believe me, I get it. Edward Gibbon beat us both by a bit: "In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again."

"Here's a first step (and always a good first step): The black parents in Atlanta should go out and buy a mirror and look into it. Is that so complicated?"

And your evidence they were part of this is?

Life experience. Where I come from parents monitor the education system. They're ultimately responsible for electing the school board and all that goes with it. As a group, they don't pass the buck to someone else.

Hell, you don't strike me as very educated yourself,...

Your many posts trying blame corruption in a Georgia school district on "our" culture and a New Age bogeyman makes me think that you're over-educated.

"Here's a first step (and always a good first step): The black parents in Atlanta should go out and buy a mirror and look into it. Is that so complicated?"

And your evidence they were part of this is?

Life experience. Where I come from parents monitor the education system. They're ultimately responsible for electing the school board and all that goes with it. As a group, they don't pass the buck to someone else.

The parents in Atlanta are most likely products of the same corrupt,incompetent schools as their children are attending. In fact the parents parents and grandparents are all from the same broken school system.

Even assuming that there are those who DO pay attention and care (and I'm sure there are some), how are they expected to 'know' that there is something wrong when they are a product of the cesspool too?

We can't completely blame the parents. However, they should take some of the blame for their children's poor education, because the drive to do well in school comes from the family and not from government and certainly not from the child's peers. The parents are responsible.

Children are held captive for endless hours of their young lives, in part so that teachers will impart cultural values to them.

It has been a long time since the average unionized public school teacher represented anything close to my values. It's all about gettin' by for too many. And administrators are worse - it's all about not making waves so the levy will pass, or trying the next idiotic theory, or indoctrinating the next aspect of the liberal agenda.